I'm not going to finish my Nanowrimo's goals unless I pull some all-nighters here at the end. Granted, I'm still darned proud of myself and how far I WAS able to get.
Total pages in my novel now? 718 (remember, I started with 752).
Page I'm on: 258
Page I should be on to finish: 526
So if I just did 266 pages tonight, I'd be caught up!
Hey, in a universe in which I was not sick with a cold, then that might even be possible.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
On rule breaking...
Nothing riles me up more than someone repeating some silly "words of wisdom" passed among people and repeated so often that people start to believe it. I remember being in junior high and being told and believing that if a guy wore pink that he was automatically gay. And if he had an earring in his right ear or did not pull his polo shirt collars up (haha, it was the '80s), then it was the kiss of death for his dating life if he actually did like girls.
The worst offenders are the fashion police. I can't tell you how bored I am of reading magazine articles about being "age appropriate." I suspect that many of them are written by either women who are twenty and do not want competition for men by cougars or they are written by women of a certain generation (you know, the ones that think helmet-head hair styles and pants suits are signs of appropriate fashion). Now, I'm not saying that people over 20 should wear micro mini skirts and Justin Bieber shirts with three-inch heels to work, but I gotta tell you, when someone says, "Oh, people over 40 shouldn't do X, Y, and Z," guess what it makes me want to do! Who made these rules? And even if these rules make sense with some or even most of the population, how is it that it fits every person at every time in every culture? Who decided that people shouldn't wear white after Labor Day?
Among a few "rules" that I find stupid:
1. Women of a certain age should cut their hair short. Well, you know what? I cut my hair short last year. Had nothing to do with age or wanting to fit in. If I wanted hair down to my butt, I would grow it to my butt, even if I were 60 years old. In fact, I am growing out a pixie now (although not to my butt) because you know what? If I don't have my particular haircut trimmed every three weeks, which I can't afford, it loses its edgy-artistic look and goes into middle-aged teacher look territory (HORROR!!!) and I've seen a few pictures of myself recently that scare me on that level and made me realize I am NOT going quietly down that road. Also, people have been ragging on or pitying my hair texture (very fine) for years and saying it has to be short or bobbed to look good and this makes me want to rebel all the more. Hair that is treated well, taken care of, treated like lace, not dyed and flat-ironed and given 80s perms will look beautiful no matter WHAT the texture.
2. If you're over 40, don't wear jeans that aren't Mom Jeans (you know, those high-waisted jeans). WHO MAKES THESE RULES? I will wear whatever clothes I want to. Turns out, I crave comfort a lot more than I crave any kind of fashion. I hate capris, which means I lose my woman-over-40 card already. So I am hardly a good example to follow if you are looking to look hot while going out. But still. If you tell me I can't, then I probably will.
3. Don't let your hair go gray. Hey, I'm PRO-not letting hair go gray, so I actually agree with this rule. I think gray hair looks bad on almost anyone under 85. But if you can rock it or even if you WANT to rock it, GO for it. Don't let anyone guilt you into not feeling comfortable with yourself. If YOU like what you see in the mirror every day, that's what's important, not rules imposed by judgmental people and 25-year-old fashionistas.
4. Don''t go trendy. I've personally never had a desire to go trendy. Most trends seem stupid to me. But I felt like that in high school, too. Again, though, if I wanted to dress trendy, I'd do it. I don't even care if a certain judgmental portion of the population thinks it looks ridiculous. Recently I saw an episode of Law and Order that featured a woman in her 40s who had an absolutely UGLY and ridiculous sense of style, as in over the top trendy. While I was pretty horrified by her choice of clothes, at the same time, I was admiring of the character and thinking about how dressing like that gave her confidence and pizzazz and set her apart from the hordes of other 40+ women trying to do what all the magazines tell them to do.
Life is short. Follow your joy. If your happiness means dressing like a clown and juggling in front of Walmart every day wearing low-slung jeans, gray hair down to your butt, and sporting white after Labor Day? GO FOR IT and enjoy. You have my permission.
Now I need to go break some writing rules. I might even change point of view in the middle of a page. The horror!
The worst offenders are the fashion police. I can't tell you how bored I am of reading magazine articles about being "age appropriate." I suspect that many of them are written by either women who are twenty and do not want competition for men by cougars or they are written by women of a certain generation (you know, the ones that think helmet-head hair styles and pants suits are signs of appropriate fashion). Now, I'm not saying that people over 20 should wear micro mini skirts and Justin Bieber shirts with three-inch heels to work, but I gotta tell you, when someone says, "Oh, people over 40 shouldn't do X, Y, and Z," guess what it makes me want to do! Who made these rules? And even if these rules make sense with some or even most of the population, how is it that it fits every person at every time in every culture? Who decided that people shouldn't wear white after Labor Day?
Among a few "rules" that I find stupid:
1. Women of a certain age should cut their hair short. Well, you know what? I cut my hair short last year. Had nothing to do with age or wanting to fit in. If I wanted hair down to my butt, I would grow it to my butt, even if I were 60 years old. In fact, I am growing out a pixie now (although not to my butt) because you know what? If I don't have my particular haircut trimmed every three weeks, which I can't afford, it loses its edgy-artistic look and goes into middle-aged teacher look territory (HORROR!!!) and I've seen a few pictures of myself recently that scare me on that level and made me realize I am NOT going quietly down that road. Also, people have been ragging on or pitying my hair texture (very fine) for years and saying it has to be short or bobbed to look good and this makes me want to rebel all the more. Hair that is treated well, taken care of, treated like lace, not dyed and flat-ironed and given 80s perms will look beautiful no matter WHAT the texture.
2. If you're over 40, don't wear jeans that aren't Mom Jeans (you know, those high-waisted jeans). WHO MAKES THESE RULES? I will wear whatever clothes I want to. Turns out, I crave comfort a lot more than I crave any kind of fashion. I hate capris, which means I lose my woman-over-40 card already. So I am hardly a good example to follow if you are looking to look hot while going out. But still. If you tell me I can't, then I probably will.
3. Don't let your hair go gray. Hey, I'm PRO-not letting hair go gray, so I actually agree with this rule. I think gray hair looks bad on almost anyone under 85. But if you can rock it or even if you WANT to rock it, GO for it. Don't let anyone guilt you into not feeling comfortable with yourself. If YOU like what you see in the mirror every day, that's what's important, not rules imposed by judgmental people and 25-year-old fashionistas.
4. Don''t go trendy. I've personally never had a desire to go trendy. Most trends seem stupid to me. But I felt like that in high school, too. Again, though, if I wanted to dress trendy, I'd do it. I don't even care if a certain judgmental portion of the population thinks it looks ridiculous. Recently I saw an episode of Law and Order that featured a woman in her 40s who had an absolutely UGLY and ridiculous sense of style, as in over the top trendy. While I was pretty horrified by her choice of clothes, at the same time, I was admiring of the character and thinking about how dressing like that gave her confidence and pizzazz and set her apart from the hordes of other 40+ women trying to do what all the magazines tell them to do.
Life is short. Follow your joy. If your happiness means dressing like a clown and juggling in front of Walmart every day wearing low-slung jeans, gray hair down to your butt, and sporting white after Labor Day? GO FOR IT and enjoy. You have my permission.
Now I need to go break some writing rules. I might even change point of view in the middle of a page. The horror!
Friday, November 11, 2011
How is Nanowrimo going, you ask?
Why, I thought you'd never ask. For lo, it has become my life. My main character is once again my BFF, and she demands my time almost every waking moment that is not involved in work or socializing or mundane basic stuff (dude, my refrigerator is nearly bare now and I don't want to waste time going to the grocery store). The other day I walked through the kitchen and noticed that dishes had really piled up. I'm not usually that bad. It's just that I've been in another world altogether (sort of literally) and had not noticed until it hit a critical point. My eccentric writerly self needs a personal maid. The muse does not like housework.
But you didn't come here to read about housework.
So here is a strange little bit of history about my current project that some of you know and some of you don't. Remember when I compared my "old school" novel, that novel that I've worked on in some variation for like 100 years (or at least since the mid-90s) to a bad boyfriend who wears leather and treats me poorly but whose bootie calls are too hot to drop? Well, here is its story. For it deserves its own blog post.
I wrote a short story once, crica 1995. I can't even remember what the hell it was called and I've mercifully blocked most of it out of memory, which is all that is left of it, but I do remember that it involved a night shift at a publishing company (what a coincidence, I worked in one at that time!) and a tornado and a ghost. Let's face it. It was not my finest hour and it was full of tropes galore. My friend read it and told me that she didn't like it and that it was trite. This is a friend who has always been admiring of my writing all our lives, so for her to say that was really hurtful and I knew it was the truth so it shook my world a bit. I was determined to write something completely awesome to impress her. I would write the most awesome story in the history of awesome stories and she would admire my writing again and the world would shift back in balance. I wasn't sure what this grand story was going to be yet.
At around the same time, I had bought some of my first cds. I had only gotten a cd player for the very first time in 1995, after years of those old fashioned tapes (I totally missed the whole 8-track era). So I had a very limited collection of cds so far, but one of them (*cringe*?) was UB40's Greatest Hits. So I was listening to this pseudo reggae island music over and over again, and daydreaming about tropical islands as can only a girl who lives in the middle of corn fields can do. My gaze landed on a fancy perfume bottle that my friend (the same who called my story trite) had brought back for me from Eastern Europe, and suddenly this scenario just fluttered into my daydreams. I saw a girl sitting on a hill (with the sea in the distance) holding a perfume bottle. I knew she was in great danger because it was the ancient relic of [blah-blah-blah-evil-person] and that it involved a journey to a tropical island. I also knew this girl lived an ordinary life and had never been in any sort of danger in her life. She worked at a pet toy company, for crying out loud.
That summer ('95), I started writing and I couldn't stop. The story grew on itself and ate my brain and became my identity. It was my main companion when we moved to another city and I was lonely and had no social life and only a part-time job. I daydreamed about it constantly. That and actually moving to a tropical island because by then I was living in northern Illinois and those winters don't f*** around.
As the years passed, this novel became part of my identity as a writer, as well. I joined a writing group and every week we used to share a new chapter of our book(s). We had inside jokes about all of our stories, my friends got to know my story and characters as well as I did. We talked about our characters as if they were real friends of ours. It felt so good, like a shared universe. And most importantly, the friend mentioned above read parts of it and she kept talking about it afterwards for awhile, like it had made an impression on her (a positive one). I remember once she painted her nails with glittery nail polish and said, "This reminds me of [insert fictitious place in my novel]" and I knew I had fully arrived.
Then I dropped the whole thing for about five years. I was distracted by other things in my life and took on other writing projects. I felt disgusted and disappointed with myself for not just finishing the whole thing, for not following through. My story seemed dumb and non-original. I felt like no matter how many versions I came up with, I was never going to be satisfied with it the way it was. I always got this perfectionistic attitude about how it needed more umph here and the characters needed to be better developed here. And the endings were weird and underdeveloped and some things just didn't make sense and I couldn't seem to make them make sense. My characters were pissing me off and going rogue like rebellious teenagers and I knew I had to do something or I was just going to kill them all off. And speaking of teenagers, maybe the characters needed to be in another age group so Take Five or so of the novel was rewriting it as a young adult novel.
Anyway, I'm starting to get bored with writing this post, so I'm going to fast forward. In 2008, when I was in Trinidad and indeed lived on an actual tropical island, I had the opportunity to be part of a wonderful writing workshop led by Elizabeth Nunez, a well known Caribbean writer. By then, The Novel That Refused To Die was in its eighth variation and had lost quite a bit of its original shine. I couldn't see that. I only wondered why my writing felt flat. I wondered why my characters seemed boring. I wondered why I kept picking over the same scene over and over again. I wanted to go deeper, to go for the jugular. I wanted to write without worrying about what anyone thought. I wanted to write those naughty scenes without picturing my grandma reading it (sorry, Grandma, if you're reading, LOL). I wanted to write the darkest things without worrying about the disapproval of people in my life that prefer Disney endings. I wanted to release the most moving parts of my soul. And I just couldn't seem to do it. I scrapped the whole thing again and started to write about a terrorist who puts a bomb on a bus and what led up to it. It was going to be a Middle Eastern version of Les Miserables and mercifully this was a short-lived obsession. Later oh-how-I-cringed at the pretentiousness (the title was "The Light From Our Souls" for heaven's sake) and woefully bad execution of it, that this is the first time I've ever confessed to the existence of this novel. It still mocks me on my hard drive.
Then in May 2008 came the darkest night of my life when a knife WAS held at my jugular and worse things happened. I really understood then what jugular meant. After that, I went through a very dark few years, and the novel evolved in that direction, too. Take Nine of the novel was the darkest version possible, and it wasn't until the summer of 2009 that I really saw that. I had needed to write that dark version, but the original spirit had long since died (RIP in the year 2001, I think). The original, old school version certainly had its dark moments, but it also had a kind of innocence to it, and it was playful, full of heart, with some humorous scenes. I didn't take it so darned seriously and had so much fun with it. I wanted that back. After a few not-so-great receptions of that latest dark version from about three different people, I reopened (for the first time in maybe 10 years), my old school version of this novel. I read it from beginning to end. I laughed, I cried, I loved it. I had missed those characters the way they were. I was so grateful I had kept it on my hard drive all those years. I decided that it needed massive editing, but that that plane needed to be brought in for the landing for the last and final time.
So this long story was an explanation as to what I'm doing for Nanowrimo and how it breaks the rules of what Nanowrimo is supposed to be (writing a fresh novel from scratch). I'm going through all 752 pages (12 pt font, double spaced). I divided 752 by 30 (30 days in November). I decided that that meant I was required to work on and edit 25 pages per day. I am already four days behind. That's okay. I have been enjoying the process more than I can possibly express. I'm back in the saddle as a writer. I am more focused with my writing than I have been in possibly years. My muse loves me again. She brings me flowers. And chocolate.
Most importantly, I feel like my identity as a writer is legit again.
But you didn't come here to read about housework.
So here is a strange little bit of history about my current project that some of you know and some of you don't. Remember when I compared my "old school" novel, that novel that I've worked on in some variation for like 100 years (or at least since the mid-90s) to a bad boyfriend who wears leather and treats me poorly but whose bootie calls are too hot to drop? Well, here is its story. For it deserves its own blog post.
I wrote a short story once, crica 1995. I can't even remember what the hell it was called and I've mercifully blocked most of it out of memory, which is all that is left of it, but I do remember that it involved a night shift at a publishing company (what a coincidence, I worked in one at that time!) and a tornado and a ghost. Let's face it. It was not my finest hour and it was full of tropes galore. My friend read it and told me that she didn't like it and that it was trite. This is a friend who has always been admiring of my writing all our lives, so for her to say that was really hurtful and I knew it was the truth so it shook my world a bit. I was determined to write something completely awesome to impress her. I would write the most awesome story in the history of awesome stories and she would admire my writing again and the world would shift back in balance. I wasn't sure what this grand story was going to be yet.
At around the same time, I had bought some of my first cds. I had only gotten a cd player for the very first time in 1995, after years of those old fashioned tapes (I totally missed the whole 8-track era). So I had a very limited collection of cds so far, but one of them (*cringe*?) was UB40's Greatest Hits. So I was listening to this pseudo reggae island music over and over again, and daydreaming about tropical islands as can only a girl who lives in the middle of corn fields can do. My gaze landed on a fancy perfume bottle that my friend (the same who called my story trite) had brought back for me from Eastern Europe, and suddenly this scenario just fluttered into my daydreams. I saw a girl sitting on a hill (with the sea in the distance) holding a perfume bottle. I knew she was in great danger because it was the ancient relic of [blah-blah-blah-evil-person] and that it involved a journey to a tropical island. I also knew this girl lived an ordinary life and had never been in any sort of danger in her life. She worked at a pet toy company, for crying out loud.
That summer ('95), I started writing and I couldn't stop. The story grew on itself and ate my brain and became my identity. It was my main companion when we moved to another city and I was lonely and had no social life and only a part-time job. I daydreamed about it constantly. That and actually moving to a tropical island because by then I was living in northern Illinois and those winters don't f*** around.
As the years passed, this novel became part of my identity as a writer, as well. I joined a writing group and every week we used to share a new chapter of our book(s). We had inside jokes about all of our stories, my friends got to know my story and characters as well as I did. We talked about our characters as if they were real friends of ours. It felt so good, like a shared universe. And most importantly, the friend mentioned above read parts of it and she kept talking about it afterwards for awhile, like it had made an impression on her (a positive one). I remember once she painted her nails with glittery nail polish and said, "This reminds me of [insert fictitious place in my novel]" and I knew I had fully arrived.
Then I dropped the whole thing for about five years. I was distracted by other things in my life and took on other writing projects. I felt disgusted and disappointed with myself for not just finishing the whole thing, for not following through. My story seemed dumb and non-original. I felt like no matter how many versions I came up with, I was never going to be satisfied with it the way it was. I always got this perfectionistic attitude about how it needed more umph here and the characters needed to be better developed here. And the endings were weird and underdeveloped and some things just didn't make sense and I couldn't seem to make them make sense. My characters were pissing me off and going rogue like rebellious teenagers and I knew I had to do something or I was just going to kill them all off. And speaking of teenagers, maybe the characters needed to be in another age group so Take Five or so of the novel was rewriting it as a young adult novel.
Anyway, I'm starting to get bored with writing this post, so I'm going to fast forward. In 2008, when I was in Trinidad and indeed lived on an actual tropical island, I had the opportunity to be part of a wonderful writing workshop led by Elizabeth Nunez, a well known Caribbean writer. By then, The Novel That Refused To Die was in its eighth variation and had lost quite a bit of its original shine. I couldn't see that. I only wondered why my writing felt flat. I wondered why my characters seemed boring. I wondered why I kept picking over the same scene over and over again. I wanted to go deeper, to go for the jugular. I wanted to write without worrying about what anyone thought. I wanted to write those naughty scenes without picturing my grandma reading it (sorry, Grandma, if you're reading, LOL). I wanted to write the darkest things without worrying about the disapproval of people in my life that prefer Disney endings. I wanted to release the most moving parts of my soul. And I just couldn't seem to do it. I scrapped the whole thing again and started to write about a terrorist who puts a bomb on a bus and what led up to it. It was going to be a Middle Eastern version of Les Miserables and mercifully this was a short-lived obsession. Later oh-how-I-cringed at the pretentiousness (the title was "The Light From Our Souls" for heaven's sake) and woefully bad execution of it, that this is the first time I've ever confessed to the existence of this novel. It still mocks me on my hard drive.
Then in May 2008 came the darkest night of my life when a knife WAS held at my jugular and worse things happened. I really understood then what jugular meant. After that, I went through a very dark few years, and the novel evolved in that direction, too. Take Nine of the novel was the darkest version possible, and it wasn't until the summer of 2009 that I really saw that. I had needed to write that dark version, but the original spirit had long since died (RIP in the year 2001, I think). The original, old school version certainly had its dark moments, but it also had a kind of innocence to it, and it was playful, full of heart, with some humorous scenes. I didn't take it so darned seriously and had so much fun with it. I wanted that back. After a few not-so-great receptions of that latest dark version from about three different people, I reopened (for the first time in maybe 10 years), my old school version of this novel. I read it from beginning to end. I laughed, I cried, I loved it. I had missed those characters the way they were. I was so grateful I had kept it on my hard drive all those years. I decided that it needed massive editing, but that that plane needed to be brought in for the landing for the last and final time.
So this long story was an explanation as to what I'm doing for Nanowrimo and how it breaks the rules of what Nanowrimo is supposed to be (writing a fresh novel from scratch). I'm going through all 752 pages (12 pt font, double spaced). I divided 752 by 30 (30 days in November). I decided that that meant I was required to work on and edit 25 pages per day. I am already four days behind. That's okay. I have been enjoying the process more than I can possibly express. I'm back in the saddle as a writer. I am more focused with my writing than I have been in possibly years. My muse loves me again. She brings me flowers. And chocolate.
Most importantly, I feel like my identity as a writer is legit again.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Come Natalie in my flying machine...
Today is a very special day!
Today is the best birthday in the world!
Happy Birthday to the adorable Princess Rose!
Love, Auntie
Here are some princesses for you!
And Nemo!
Have a happy, happy birthday!!!
Friday, November 4, 2011
Soup Week at Hot Pink Mama's Blog! :)
I have been busy, busy, busy! Work has been crazy, writing has been crazy, and the idea of thinking up something to write in my bloggie has just kept getting pushed aside! I will get back into this. I WANT to. I love writing here and thinking that maybe a few people here and there might enjoy my "when vacations go dreadfully wrong" movie reviews and profound thoughts on writing and procrastination and massive spiders and miscreant Siamese cats.
BUT most importantly of all....
Yes, go to Pink Audrey's blog (and also go because she's awesome and her blog is super fun and interesting) and see all the delicious and yummy soup recipes that were posted this week! No, seriously. Don't walk, run! And I mean sprint, not slow-ass running like what I do. Audrey's posted some, but also there were six guest posts, including one from me!
Here's mine:
Hot and Sour Soup
Happy Soup Eating!
BUT most importantly of all....
Yes, go to Pink Audrey's blog (and also go because she's awesome and her blog is super fun and interesting) and see all the delicious and yummy soup recipes that were posted this week! No, seriously. Don't walk, run! And I mean sprint, not slow-ass running like what I do. Audrey's posted some, but also there were six guest posts, including one from me!
Here's mine:
Hot and Sour Soup
Happy Soup Eating!
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